Tannen's Magic Shop is one of New York's hidden gems. Out of sight from street level, it is the oldest running magic shop in the city. It also hosts a wonderful late night magic show most Thursdays. Written for Messy Nessy Chic over in Paris.

Exploring the historic, often whimsical hand painted murals which grace some Manhattan bars. A backdrop of refined elegance from the bygone era of old New York. Originally written for Messy Nessy Chic over in Paris.

This winter I traveled around Cuba using Graham Greene's iconic 1958 comic spy novel 'Our Man In Havana' as a guide book. Going off in search of the all the bars, hotels and other locations, carrying Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare just in case. Full story up on Atlas Obscura.

All over turn of the century office buildings are ornate mail boxes in the lobby. They were part of the ingenious Cutler Mail Chute system, connected to the floors above by brass and glass chutes that letter senders could pop their correspondence in, to be whisked away to the lobby and collection by the postman. Some of the designs are simply glorious! There are about 800 all in all still around, many of them still operational and able to be used! I set off for Atlas Obscura to track some of them down.

Before the Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, there was the Baedeker! Started in Germany in the 19th century, the guide books with the distinctive red covers were widely popular amongst the new leisured gentlemanly middle class Victorian traveler. I spent a weekend in New York using the guide book, staying in a recommended hotel, dining at suggested restaurants and bars, and unearthing fascinating gems and insights into the city.

One of my favourite hotels in the city, the New Yorker is filled with all sorts of wonderful secrets and stories; from the room where Nikola Tesla died and spent the last 10 years of his life in solitude, to the hidden tunnel underneath 34th street, to the old ice rink dance floor. I was shown around the incredible archives collected by long term employee, and hotel historian....vintage cocktail lists, menus, even recordings made in the ballrooms.

Earlier this year I spent some time in Ukraine, inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. As well as exploring the original old town of Chernoby, the abandoned worker's city of Pripyat and the Cold War listening radar towers of the Duga-3, I stayed overnight inside the Zone in an 1950s Soviet style hotel!

Right here in Brooklyn, is New York's first municipal airport, Floyd Bennett Field. Dating from the golden age of aviation This is where Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post and countless other adventurers took off from and landed, but it currently lies in disrepair. Even more extra-ordinary, in one of the far hangars is a vintage airplane graveyard........manned by ex-airforce veterans who spend their retirement and spare time bringing the aircraft back to life!

Whilst traveling across the United States by train this summer, I came across a man in Kansas City with a most unusual hobby....he tracked down and excavated steam boats that sunk in the 19th century, usually laden with all sorts of treasure and supplies.

I found an old 19th century opera house in a small town in Connecticut that closed its doors in the 1940s. What makes the old theatre even eerier is that hidden under the stage are the abandoned jail cells and police headquarters for the town. I found old crime scene reports, photographs and fingerprints from cases from the 1930s on the floor.

I traveled to Kansas City and Hallmark Cards HQ, where they have a wonderful collection of fine art! Not only that, but an army of illustrators, message writers and artists designing and making lovely cards all day long! Their amazing art collection includes works by Van Gogh, Normal Rockwell and Winston Churchill.

I traveled across Europe, through Transylvania, using Bram Stoker's book Dracula as a tour guide. Following in the footsteps of English lawyer Jonathan Harker, I traveled by train, staying in the same hotels, inns and towns.

This beautiful Art Deco train station, every bit as magnificent as New York's Grand Central Terminal, has been left empty for over 40 years. I went to explore the station and meet the volunteers who are trying to restore it.

Within the campus of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is a geographer’s treasure trove: over a million artifacts from the American Geographical Society, one of the most incredible collections of maps, atlases and globes to be found in America.

Charles Linbergh's original hand signed maps from his record Atlantic Crossing, letters from Dr. Livingston, hand drawn maps by Captain Cook, ancient maps that actually list the whereabouts of dragons and monsters........

Walking through Flushing Park, looking for remnants of the two World's Fairs that here held here during the last century, I came across a memorial plaque hidden away in a flowerbed by the Queen's museum. It marked the deaths of two members of the NYPD's bomb squad, who it said were killed near by investigating an explosive device on July 4th, 1940.

It turns out that this little known terrorist attack is largely forgotten in New York history. As the bomb was planted in the British Pavilion, the German Nazi Bund party was suspected, but the case was never solved.

Investigating the case led me to meet the daughter of one of the two officers killed that day, who was 10 when the tragedy occurred.

Working on my family tree, I discovered on my mother's side, a genuine female serial killer! One of the infamous Victorian Black Witches, she dispatched her husband and children with arsenic! She was eventually caught after one of her boys survived and testified against her. The bodies were exhumed and she was hung in the town square of Lewes, Sussex.

The story, which featured original gruesome murder reports in the London Times, was picked up by the paper, after being published on Atlas Obscura.

The beauty of Provence is known the world over, but less known are the secret concentration camps of World War II. This one, hidden away in an old tile factory outside of Aix, was run by the French themselves, who voluntarily handed over Jews to the Nazis to be deported to Auschwitz. A terrible chapter of French history that they would rather bury in the past.

About an hour’s sail northwest from the old Spanish port city of Cartagena de Indias are a group of about 30 islands known collectively as the Islas de Rosario. With their bleached white beaches, clear blue crystal waters and abundant wildlife, they are a true tropical paradise. Hundreds of daytrippers from Cartagena descend on La Playa Blanca year round, tourists and locals alike.

But a little further out into the Caribbean Sea lies an island whose way of life has remained largely untouched for hundreds of years. La Isla Grande is home to about 800 islanders who sustain themselves mostly by fishing and farming, cut off from the modern world. With no running water and electrical power lines, daily life still generally revolves around when the sun rises and sets. But this idyll did the get attention of one vacationer, who built a palace, now abandoned.

That would be infamous King of Cocaine, the original El Patron, Pablo Escobar.

New York is famous for its historic, glamorous hotels. But often overlooked, yet perhaps the most storied hotel of them all, is the one with the most iconic name: the New Yorker.

Despite its slightly more humble nature, the New Yorker hotel is filled with untold secrets and forgotten stories—a beautiful Art Deco tunnel that ran from the lobby to Penn Station, still hidden underneath 34th Street; a vast private power plant that could have powered a small city; a gleaming forgotten bank vault underneath the lobby; an old dining room that came complete with a retractable ice floor, where diners could sip cocktails while watching a twirling glamorous dance show; and one of the world’s greatest inventors, Nikola Tesla, who died a virtual recluse after living alone in the hotel for over a decade.

Deep in the mountains of Bavaria is a concrete doorway set into the side of the mountain. Even in the height of summer, the thick steel door is cool to the touch, and drips with condensation. From the edges of the door frame comes a chilling cold breeze. It isn’t marked on any tourists guide maps, as the government would prefer that you had no idea that it exists.